The Love in the Loss
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: "Whatever happened to whoever it was that used to work here before me?" A simple question gets Vincent and Athene a not-so-simple reply.


**A/N: this scene is from S4E7, "The He in the She" and was originally between Hodgins and Vincent, but I tweaked it some and this was the end result.**

 **This ficlet is sponsored by the letter R. R is for reading. And reviewing.**

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"May I ask you something?" Vincent asked after a moment of peaceable silence, Athene hopping from his left shoulder to his right. He wished that she would be still; he didn't want to give the notoriously hard-to-impress Dr. Brennan any reason to think of him of incapable and having his own dæmon bounce around like a hyperactive child's might very well do it.

FBI Special Agent Booth let out a theatrical groan of exasperation, dropping his head back against the sofa. "Oh, God, is there any way to say no?" he asked, rhetorical of course, and his dæmon—a fairly large and dangerous grey wolf—rolled her burnished gold eyes.

"Whatever happened to...whoever it was that used to work here before me?" He had heard murmurs and hushed whispers about Dr. Brennan's former intern, though they all grew very quiet whenever he came near, as if nobody wanted him to know the truth. He had no desire to step wrong with Dr. Brennan by asking her directly and was hoping that the American agent might be able to shed a degree of light upon the truth.

Clearly it was still a tender subject, as Agent Booth sat upright and forward with his elbows on his knees, jaw set and eyes dark. His dæmon, whom Vincent had yet to learn the name of, also sat up, her ears forward and alert as she fixed Athene beneath her stare. Vincent resisted the urge to wriggle in his seat or spout off one of the many facts he had stored due to his retentive memory, though Athene made no effort to stop her nervous shuffle on his shoulder. He nearly thought that Booth wouldn't answer him at all, but then the other man said in a flat voice, "He joined forces with a serial killer who was the last in a long line of cannibalistic murders who specialised in knocking off members of secret societies and building skeletons out of their body parts."

"Wow," Vincent breathed after a moment. It was the only thing that he could think to say, and he resisted the childish urge to hug Athene against his chest as he had as a child. She was still on his shoulder at last, but he could feel her feathers trembling against his ear. _Cannibalistic murderers making skeletons out of their victims' body parts? Good Lord..._ "I-I hope that doesn't happen to me. So he...he's not coming back?" _I should bloody well hope not._

"No. He's locked up for the rest of his life. But we all still love him." The agent's eyes went distant a moment, his hand coming to rest almost unconsciously on his dæmon's head between her ears. The she-wolf had yet to take her eyes away from Athene, and Vincent felt his better half dig her talons into his shoulder anxiously. The sound of Ms. Montenegro calling for him snapped Booth out of his momentary lapse. He stood up and gone was the brief moment of regretful longing, once more the man of action and energy. Booth started to leave, then paused, turned, and added as an afterthought, "Also, English, if you don't want to find tarantulas in your pockets, I wouldn't mention Zack to Hodgins. Ever."

 _Tarantulas?_ Vincent wasn't afraid of very much, but tarantulas, more than any other insect or arthropod, terrified him. It was very easy to be afraid of a spider that was almost as large as Athene. "They were close friends?" he ventured.

"Zack was the Thelma to Hodgins' Louise, yeah." The agent turned away once more and walked towards the stairs, his wolf dæmon loping along at his heels like a grey shadow, her claws tacking softly on the tiled floors.

Vincent said, "Agent Booth, did you know—?"

"Probably not and don't care to," Booth cut him off.

He slumped back in his chair, the half-forgotten coffee mug clasped between his hands. Athene nibbled on his ear and lightly brushed her wing against his cheek. "We've got a lot to live up to, don't we?" he asked softly. Despite the nonchalant way that Agent Booth spoke of this Zack's crimes, he had said, ' _we all still love him.'_ Not just like him, but love him. Zack, whoever he had been before, was quite obviously a member of the Jeffersonian family, even now, and Vincent was going to have a bugger-all time trying to fill those shoes.

"I believe so, Vin," Athene murmured.


End file.
